From Fasting to Feasting

For years I have been trying to share this information by going through verses in 1 and 2 Nephi but it seems that the point is always lost. So, instead of trying to teach verse by verse, I am sharing a very general overview of what to look for and how to see. Then I hope you will take these things and study and read 1 and 2 Nephi for yourselves. In the books of 1 and 2 Nephi, we read so many wonderful stories full of incredible truths and doctrine. Among the virtues and principles we learn are humility, obedience, repentance, and consistency. We see deeply throughout those books two kinds of love - the love for God and the love for family. We learn about the sweetness of drawing near to Christ and the bitterness of turning away. We learn how consistent actions bring about mighty changes. The lessons go on and on. We also learn one very important over-arching lesson which is what I’d like to focus on. We learn what it takes to enter back into the presence of the Lord. Nephi, as an old m...

For many years there has been lurking within me a discontentment with the idea that we have to repent to make us worthy. I mean, I understand that is true using certain definitions. But it has had a feeling with it that smacked of untruth for me. The undertone, based on my definitions, when people said those words was something along the lines of us being barred from God until we become “worthy” through our repentance. It felt like God’s motive in commanding us to repent was so that we could come up a little closer to Him. It felt like a separation between me and God, a wall, and I didn’t like it. It smacked of God saying I was not worthy to touch the hem of His garment and had to grovel a bit before He would deign to hear me. Maybe I’m the only one who caught those undertones when people spoke of repentance. But they always seemed to be there and I’ve always felt a great discontent with the distance it puts between our Heavenly Parents and their beloved children. This last week I’ve h...

For years and years the phrase "I AM..." has been what I call the "phrase of creation." To me it is the phrase that is the "abracadabra" of life. Abracadabra is a Hebrew word. It means - in a very loose translation - I create what I speak. "I am" followed by whatever we say is an internal command to our body, our thing that we have god-like command over, our second estate. This body obeys what I tell it to do. It obeys my emotions, those things to which I most deeply attune. It obeys my words when I truly believe the things I say. "I am tired...I am fat...I am lonely...I am...." My body and my life obey that which I speak into existence. These thoughts have all come as a result of studying the idea that God, when announcing Himself to the children of Israel through Moses, told Moses to tell them "I AM hath sent me." For the next six months, I've decided I'm going to dedicate 35 days of study to each of the first ...

I was going to go to the temple one Saturday. See, about a month before Cory passed, the Oakland temple closed for at least a year. So getting to the temple isn't as easy as it used to be. I planned to go to the Fresno temple while visiting friends a couple of weeks ago. But it was closed for it's two-week cleaning. Then I tried to go with a friend to the Sacramento temple but traffic made it so that we didn't make the session. I needed to go to the temple. But this would be my first time back to the temple since he died and I had all kinds of feelings about it. When it came down to it, I couldn't make myself get out of bed. I also needed to prepare a Sunday School lesson for my class, practice my song that I would be singing in Sacrament meeting, fold and put away my laundry, clean and vacuum my home, and I needed to eat something...because it was nearly 1:00 in the afternoon. But I just kept thinking, if I get out of bed, what I really should do is go to the temple ...

A treatise on words and creation. The words we use convey meaning. Sometimes this meaning is powerful and deep. Other times this meaning hurts and is painful. The meanings may fill us with joy. Still, other times it fills us with dread. How? How can words have such powerful meaning? How do words start and end wars? How do words make or break relationships? How does someone not saying a particular phrase bring peace or pain? Why do we share words with each other? Is it not, in it’s essence, for connection? Words help us understand each other. They propound to others that which is internal and unseeable, unknowable in any other way. Words are one of the highest expressions because they allow me to convey my brightest or most noble thoughts, my base and shameful feelings, my fears and triumphs, my sorrows and my joys; words allow me to take all of these abstract things which do not exist in reality and carry them forth into a moment and make them known to all who hear me. Words, in pe...